Hazardous material placards are well-known items that are used within the transportation industry and storage/warehousing industry to warn people of the presence of hazardous materials. Different types of hazardous materials merit different types of placards. Because the handling of hazardous materials is a major safety issue of national importance, a large number of government regulations define the conditions under which various placards are to be used (see, for example, 49 CFR Part 172; 49 CFR 177.823; and other well-known regulations governing the use of placards in connection with hazardous materials; see also “Handling Hazardous Materials”, J. J. Keller & Associates, Inc, 2001, the entire disclosures of all of which are incorporated herein by reference). For example, for a shipment of nickel cyanide, a POISON placard would be appropriate, while for a shipment of morpholine, a FLAMMABLE placard would be appropriate. Under these government regulations, factors that affect the selection of an appropriate placard may include: (1) the class(es) of hazardous material(s) involved, and (2) the amount(s) of hazardous material(s) involved.
Because of the complexity of such government regulations, efforts have been made in the art to develop a system that automatically identifies an appropriate placard for use with the transportation or storage of a hazardous material. For example, U.S. Patent Application Publication 2002/0103570 (in the name of Petrancosta), the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses such an effort.
However, while systems such as the one disclosed by Petrancosta provide a general improvement in the art with respect to identifying an appropriate placard for use in the shipment or storage of hazardous materials, it is the inventor's belief that such systems have failed to achieve widespread acceptance in the marketplace because of a variety of substantial shortcomings that hinder their value.
First, in conventional practices known to the inventor, transportation terminals and warehouse/storage facilities must purchase large numbers of different kinds of placards. These placards, which are held in inventory, are selected for use with the transportation and/or storage of hazardous materials as needed. Once selected for use, a placard is affixed to either the outside of the transportation vehicle or the material packaging/container at a visible location (see, for example, 49 CFR 172.516).
The task of ensuring that the placard inventory is complete and up-to-date is a complex one that many entities struggle with. To maintain an inventory of a full set of placards that accounts for all of the potential combinations of placard type, classification number, and UN numbers, a company would have to constantly track the supply and usage of thousands of different hazardous material placards.
Alternatively, many companies opt to purchase a large number of generic placard types (e.g., “flammable” placards, “corrosive” placards, etc.) with either or both of the class number and UN number fields blank. Under such an approach, companies typically maintain a large inventory of stickers or number tiles that that can be affixed to the generic placards as necessary to accommodate different hazardous material types. While reducing the size and complexity of maintaining the placard inventory, this approaches requires companies to manage an inventory of stickers and/or number tiles.
Moreover, as conventional hazardous material placards circulate throughout the national and international transportation networks, they are inevitably re-used and sometimes altered to accommodate supply shortages. For example, it is relatively common for a placard to have its UN number modified to accommodate a given shipment, by for example changing a “1” to a “7” using a black marker or black tape. Similarly, white tape has been used to change the number “4” to a “1”.
While such hand-numbering and alterations are not encouraged, they are an inevitable consequence of the conventional business practices relating to hazardous material placards because no matter how hard a company may try to keep its placard inventory complete, a situation will almost assuredly arise where a shipment of a given amount of hazardous material will be slated for transportation or storage and the proper placard is unavailable. In situations like these, companies are faced with a tough dilemma of whether to modify an existing placard to approximate the government-mandated placard or ship/store the hazardous material without the appropriate placard. Unfortunately, as evidenced by the volume of fines imposed on transportation companies for improper placarding, problems do exist in the field wherein shipments leave a terminal or warehouse without the appropriate placard. This not only violates government regulations but also creates a substantial safety problem.
Hazardous material placards perform an important safety role in that they allow firefighters and other emergency response personnel to quickly identify a potential problem and how that problem should be handled. For example, if a tractor-trailer full of a particular kind of toxic or corrosive substance is involved in an accident, it is extremely important that responding emergency personnel be able to quickly and accurately identify the type of hazardous material involved. Such personnel typically possess manuals that identify response procedures for dealing with specific hazardous materials, and if the tractor-trailer is improperly placarded, a substantial breakdown in the safety process is created.
Further, the use of stickers or hand-numbering to create an appropriate placard from a generic placard allows for the introduction of human error into the placarding process. This human error may relate to the improper selection of numbers (e.g., transposing numbers such that “1409” is used as a UN number when “1049” was intended), or in inadequately affixing the number(s) to the placard such that the number(s) fall off the placard during movement of the hazardous material(s).
Further still, the costs related to maintaining a sufficient inventory of placards and placard-related items (such as number stickers, etc.) is substantial. For a relatively small over-the-road transportation company, the placard inventory costs can be as much as $50,000 per year (not including any fines that such a company may incur for improper placarding citations). For large transportation companies or large manufacturers who ship large amounts of hazardous materials, the inventor herein believes that the yearly placard inventory costs may reach six or seven figures.
Moreover, the storage of large numbers of placards at transportation terminals or storage facilities creates a space problem. That is, a large amount of space at the terminal or facility must be set aside for storing the placards.
In an effort to solve these aforementioned problems in the art, the inventor herein has developed a system, method and apparatus that allows a user to print, on-demand, the appropriate placard for a hazardous material to be shipped or stored. The present invention alleviates the burdens related to maintaining a placard inventory and greatly reduces the amount of human error that can be introduced into the placarding system. Further, the present invention provides these benefits while reducing the placard-related costs borne by a company because placard supply is optimized to exactly match placard demand via an elegantly simple low-cost on-demand placard production process.
Accordingly, under one aspect of the present invention, disclosed herein is a system comprising: (1) an input device through which a user can select a hazardous material placard from a menu of hazardous material placards; (2) memory in which placard attributes are stored, the placard attributes defining the graphical appearance of a plurality of hazardous material placards; (3) a processor in communication with the input device and memory, wherein the processor is configured to retrieve from memory the placard attributes corresponding to the selected placard; and (4) an output device in communication with the processor, wherein the output device is configured to print one or more hazardous material placards in accordance with the retrieved placard attributes.
The above-described system works well in situations where the user already knows of the hazardous material placard that is needed. However, it is often the case where the user is uncertain of the necessary hazardous material placard(s). For example, in a situation wherein a transporter intends to ship a composite cargo of X pounds of Hazardous Material 1 and Y pounds of Hazardous Material 2, the appropriate placard for the shipment may not be readily known because relatively complex government regulations define how placards are to be selected for composite shipments. In an effort to ensure the shipment is appropriately placarded, the present invention also provides a process for determining the appropriate placard to be printed on-demand as a function of user input related to the various parameters related to the hazardous materials to be shipped or stored. It should be noted that this feature of the present invention can be used in connection not only with composite shipments of a plurality of hazardous materials but also the shipment and/or storage of an amount of a single type of hazardous material.
Thus, according to another aspect of the present invention, disclosed herein is a system comprising: (1) an input device through which a user can input parameters relating to a hazardous material to be transported or stored, (2) a processor configured to determine a hazardous material placard for the hazardous material according to a computerized analysis of the input parameters, and (3) an output device configured to print the determined placard.
Preferably, the input and output device are located in a facility where hazardous material placards are needed, such as a transportation terminal or a storage facility. Transportations terminals may include facilities such as trucking terminals, rail terminals, port facilities, road-side truck stops or gas stations that cater to over-the-road truckers, weigh stations, inspection stations, loading/unloading docks at manufacturing facilities, and the like. Storage facilities may include warehouses, railyards, tractor-trailer yards, and the like. Each facility may include a plurality of such input and output devices to allow concurrent placard printing by a plurality of users.
Also, the processor is preferably further configured to execute a hazardous material placard selection program, wherein the program is configured to determine a hazardous material placard according to a relationship between the input parameters and a plurality of predetermined hazardous material placard selection rules. These placard selection rules preferably comply with applicable government regulations relating to hazardous materials.
Further, the system preferably further comprises memory that is configured to store a plurality of hazardous material placard attributes, wherein the placard attributes correspond to the appearances of the placards, wherein the processor is further configured to retrieve the stored attributes corresponding to the determined placard, and wherein the output device is further configured to print the determined placard in accordance with the retrieved attributes. The placard produced by the output device preferably complies with the applicable government regulations in connection with the appearance of hazardous material placards.
The input parameters provided by the user preferably relate to the class(es) of hazardous material(s) to be transported or stored, and the amount(s) of the hazardous material(s). However, other parameters may be used in addition to or instead of these parameters, such as the UN number(s) of the hazardous material(s), the North American number(s) of the hazardous material(s), the name(s) of the hazardous material(s), and the like. However, it should be noted that the inventor prefers that hazardous material amount remain one of the input parameters, particularly when composite shipments comprising a combination of different types of hazardous materials are involved.
Also, the placard selection rules and placard attributes also preferably take into account using the appropriate UN identification numbers and classification numbers on the placards for the hazardous materials. Further still, the placard selection rules preferably implement the segregation and compatibility rules that relate to composite shipments.
Further, the components of the system may be implemented in a distributed manner, thereby taking advantage of the flexibility provided by communications networks such as the Internet. Such distributed implementation allows centralization for features of the invention that are broadly applicable to each local input device and output device.
Additional features of the present invention include the ability to implement a payment system for the placard printing process and the ability to adjust the placard selection program and/or placard attributes to changes via a centralized server.
Moreover, the present invention may be implemented on a computer readable medium. Such a medium may include, but is not limited to a CD-ROM disk, a computer hard drive, software resident on a network-accessible server, and the like.
Thus, the invention provides an elegantly simple and low-cost solution to the placard inventory management problem. Further, the present invention provides a means for improving the safety of the nation's transportation network and storage facilities by greatly reducing the amount of human error that can be introduced into the placarding process. Further still, the present invention provides a means by which a company can cost-effectively minimize the likelihood of government fines for improper placarding.
These and other features and advantages of the present invention will be in part pointed out and in part apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon review of the following description, figures, and claims.